7:02: He begins. If you don't believe we're in a crisis, you should talk to one person who's lost his job. Why would that be convincing? Only government can solve this problem. Money should go to the people most likely to spend it — not the wealthiest people, supposedly.

7:08: Failure to act "will only deepen" the crisis. That's less inflammatory that some of his recent statements.

7:10: Jennifer Loven asks him about his stronger earlier statement, that without action we may never recover. Do you think you risk losing credibility? No no no no no no. "You potentially create a negative spiral."

7:14: "That wasn't just some random number that I plucked out of.... uh" — he's thinking: can't say my ass — "out of a hat."

7:17: Iran. He's looking into it. "In the coming months, we will be looking for... openings...."

7:20: He's filibustering — using the boring professor mode.

7:23: "Everyone needs to be possessed with a sense of urgency." Let's be bipartisan: You must agree with me.

7:25: This isn't pork. There are no earmarks.

7:28: Is it so terrible to have a schoolhouse built in the 1850s? Let's see the school! You have to stop teaching when a train goes by. You get to hear a train go by. [ADDED: Don't liberals care about historical architecture?]

7:37: Jake Tapper asks how people are supposed to know if this economic plan is working — considering that earlier efforts haven't seemed to work. Obama talks about "creating or saving" 4 million jobs — huge difference between those 2 things! He talks a lot, but I don't feel that we got an answer (or that we could).

7:41: Will Obama let the press come photograph soldiers' coffins? He's looking into it. He'll get back to you later.

7:44: He's not going to let al Qaeda "act with impunity," but he has no details right now.

7:47: "I have no idea" what Biden was talking about. "I really don't."

7:51: Helen Thomas gets her first shot at him. Does he know of anyone in the Middle East who's got nuclear weapons?

7:52: Huffington Post gets a question. What about Patrick Leahy's "truth and reconciliation commission" to investigate the "crimes" of the Bush administration? Will you rule out prosecutions? Come on, Barack. Just give us a nice upstanding "yes." [Sorry, I had "no" before, based on misreading the phrasing of the question.] Instead, we get the usual bullshit about how he hasn't "seen the proposals" and can't really "express an opinion" and he's got to look into it. Ugh! But his administration will do everything right. Fine. Good. Perfect. But the question is whether you will go in for this retribution against the prior administration? He does end with: "But my general orientation is let's get it right moving forward." Now, that is the right answer, and I think he knows it. It would have been presidential to take a stand against the Leahy effort. But that was not to be. A sadly missed opportunity.

7:58: "There's some ideological blockage there that needs to be cleared up." That's the characterization of the opposition to the stimulus. Makes those of us who are hesitant sound like some kind of disease. "But I am the eternal optimist... People respond to civility and rational argument... and that's the kind of leadership that I'm going to provide. Thank you guys!" Well, I respond to civility and rational argument, but I believe you just talked about me like I was some kind of disease!

8:00: He ends exactly on the button. We hear a stomp as he steps off the podium, and his walk back into the White House is noticeably different from Bush's. How can I describe the different feeling I get from that walk? You can object to this if you want. It's just my feeling. I think Bush would walk away in a ritual fashion that said: I am the President and I have accomplished what the President must do. Obama's walk said: I'm a man who has this job and now I've done it and I'm out of here.

Also, I think there should be a betting pool as to when this will wrap up. One might expect it to be around 30 minutes as promised, but he may cut it short if it goes poorly, or go long if they serve up big long sloppy mash notes of questions.

"If you don't believe we're in a crisis, you should talk to one person who's lost his job."

My wife's Aunt and Uncle lost there job. Talked to them, they don't think there is a crisis. They paid off their home long ago, and just sold off their boat, which is the only debt. What they don't want is more debt transferred to them as taxpayers. That's the crisis that concerns them.

Just remember, they didn't lose their jobs through any fault of their own... it's not like the writing has been on the wall of the US auto industry to the past 15 years...but hey... who needs personal responsibility?

I can see talking to a family in which multiple members have lost jobs due the closing of a plant in specific community--though whether that local crisis translates to a national one is yet another argument to be made. But just one person? I don't get that either, as an analysis or argument. Also, it implies that if you're concerned about the details/scope/etc. of the stimulus plan, you must not be taking the economic problems seriously, and this, in turn, must be because you've never talked to someone who's lost his or her job due to recent economic events. None of that automatically follows.

He's stumbling enough that even those who didn't notice that before the election (hint: Althouse, Sully, etc.) can see it.

If anyone wants to actually prevent this train wreck, help me push this plan. Or, come up with an effective alternative.

Under my plan, people will go out and embarrass nationally-known political leaders who support the plan on video, and then upload that to Youtube. They'll do that by asking them difficult questions designed to reveal the flaws in the plan and designed to reveal that its promoters haven't thought through all of its impacts.

Simply stating that plan won't bring it about. I need others to promote it, such as by getting major bloggers to urge their readers to ask questions.

If anyone isn't pushing that plan or an effective alternative, they're just wasting your time by putting on a show.

madawaskan, if he is, he's doing so in a particularly illiterate fashion. Richard gave that speech at the conclusion of the metaphorical winter. The winter had been made glorious summer by the sun of York - when "all the clouds that lour'd upon our house, In the deep bosom of the ocean buried."

Who are these anonymous people in Congress who think we should do nothing? I haven't heard a single member of Congress say that. Some may have said nothing would be better than the current plan, but Obama is misleading with that statement.

Oh my Lord what a tool! He just whined about a schoolhouse that was built in the 19th century that is still in use today. You live in a house built in the 18th century, you dipshit! In your last job - when you actually showed up - you were working in a section constructed in the 1860s! That a building is old doesn't say a damn thing about its soundness.

"This notion that I came in here ginned up to spend 800 billion dollars, that wasn't my plan" - nonesense. You may not have planned to spend that precise amount on this project, but you can't ask to be taken seriously that you aren't a believer in federal spending half an hour into a reelection commercial wherein you've constantly emphasized that you do.

That was a very revisionist history he gave of the Japanese Lost Decade. My understanding is the Japanese spent hugely on public works projects and propped up their favored banks and companies (which really blur together in the Japanese system). The O claimed that the Japanese didn't do enough.

That was a very revisionist history he gave of the Japanese Lost Decade. My understanding is the Japanese spent hugely on public works projects and propped up their favored banks and companies (which really blur together in the Japanese system). The O claimed that the Japanese didn't do enough.

I love a lot of these questions, some of them are very critical of Obama's policies. And I bet a lot of people watching this press conference are hearing these criticisms for the first time. Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make this prime time.

I love that the public is overwhelmingly against the Republicans and their handling of the stimulus, and yet the media is still worrying about Obama losing credibility on his bipartisan efforts. Hello, everyone is over the Republicans and even when Obama tried to work with them, they acted like children. They're done.

Churchill said: "That was a very revisionist history he gave of the Japanese Lost Decade. My understanding is the Japanese spent hugely on public works projects and propped up their favored banks and companies"

Yes! They started to recover when the gov't finally threw up their hands and quit throwing money at the problem!

Come to think of it, Obama was President of the Harvard Law Review, which is and was based in Gannet House, built in the 1830s. Unsound, Barack? What kind of traditionalist is so skeptical of buildings because of their age? Tony Blair was outed - if any outing was needed - by his infatuation with Norman Foster, so perhaps this will do the same for the "Obama's really a traditionalist" defense.

He is doing okay, and all politicians provide us with BS, but his deceptive claim that he will "create or save" four million jobs drives me nuts. It obviously is no standard whatsoever, because no matter what the job numbers are, he will claim that he "saved" four million jobs.

He just basically laughed at Joe Biden and said he had no idea what he was talking about when Joe said we had a 30% chance of getting this wrong. If Obama was dumb enough to pick someone he openly laughs at for VP, why in the world would we trust him to spend 900 billion.

Nicely done on ignoring Helen's attempt to get a follow-up question. You could hear her trying to interrupt him several times - who the hell does she think she is to interrupt a guy important enough to interrupt House?

But what would happen if the government did nothing? What it is the worst it could get? Could it equal or surpass the the Carter 70s? Could it equal or surpass the Depression? Is that too great a price to pay for liberty?

And comedians on the Daily Show and SNL will still claim, even after this debacle of a press conference, that there are no good hooks for parody with regards to the wonderful and practically perfect 44th President.

aRghh! I turned the Talker off and came downstairs and found some relief right here, haha. So, off the top of my head:* Elkhardt, Indiana, stunt for the purposes of this press conference, confirms my suspicions of how unserious Obama sees this crisis if he can fussy-butt around with such theater.* This economic problem being the fault of the (everybody sing along) "failed policies of the last 8 years". Sigh. Actually, it's the failed policies of the last 20 at least, of which many of those who have been a part of it (Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, etc. I mean you) are more empowered and unexamined than ever.* The Straw Man choice of No action or this clumsy barge of a bill demeans authentic discussion: The real problem is that it is clear this bill is more about "we won" and Rahm's "don't waste a crisis" mentality and MUCH LESS about putting out an economic firestorm. Let's keep it lean. Let's make this bill a fist aimed at the threatening recession beast instead of an open hand of payola out to every interest Rahm can check-off. Obama insults us all.